1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of gaming, the play of games dealt out of a card-reading shoe, and systems for reading the rank and or suit of cards.
2. Background of the Art
The content of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/417,894 filed May 3, 2006, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/152,475 filed Jun. 13, 2005, is herein incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Cards are ordinarily provided to players in casino table card games either from a deck held in the dealer's hands, from a shuffler, or from a dealing shoe. The original dealing racks were little more than trays that supported the deck(s) of cards after shuffling and allowed the dealer to remove the front card (with its back facing the table to hide the rank and/or suit of the card) and deliver it to a player. Over the years, many alternative card delivery devices have been introduced.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,667,959 (PFEIFFER) describes a card apparatus having a card hopper adapted to hold from one to at least 104 cards, a card carousel having multiple slots for holding cards, an injector for sequentially loading cards from the hopper into the carousel, output ports, ejectors for delivering cards from the carousel to any one of the output ports, and a control board and sensors, all in a housing. The apparatus is capable of communicating with selectors which are adjustable for making card selections.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,743 (NICOLETTI) describes the use of a mechanical card dispensing means to advance cards at least part way out of a shoe. The described invention is for a dispenser for playing cards comprising: a shoe adapted to contain a plurality of stacked playing cards, the playing cards including a leading card and a trailing card; the shoe including a back wall, first and second side walls, a front wall, a base, and an inclined floor extending from the back wall to proximate the front wall and adapted to support the playing cards; the floor being inclined downwardly from the back wall to the front wall; the front wall having an opening and otherwise being adapted to conceal the leading card; and the front wall, side walls, base and floor enclosing a slot positioned adjacent the floor, the slot being sized to permit a playing card to pass through the slot; card advance means contacting the trailing card and adapted to urge the stacked cards down the inclined floor; card dispensing means positioned proximate the front wall and adapted to dispense a single card at a time, the card dispensing means including leading card contact means adapted for rotation about an axis parallel to the leading card, whereby rotation of the leading card contact means displaces the leading card relative to the card stack and into a predetermined position extending out of the shoe from the slot; and an endless belt located in the opening in the front wall for rotating the leading card contact means, the endless belt having an exterior surface securely engaging the leading card contact means and being adapted to be displaced by an operator.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,039 (MILLER) describes a “no peek” device for speeding the pace of a game of blackjack. The device is comprised of a housing having a top surface. A card reader for reading playing card markings is located within the housing. An indicator cooperating with the card reader is provided to inform the dealer if his down card is of a desired value. There is also disclosed herein a method for increasing the speed of play in an organized game of blackjack. The device indicates the presence of an ace or ten as the hole card in the dealers Blackjack hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,779,546 (MEISSNER) describes a method and apparatus to enable a game to be played based upon a plurality of cards. An automated dealing shoe dispenses each of the cards and recognizes the rank and/or suit of each of the cards as each of the cards is dispensed. Electronic player controls are also included. The controls enable a player to enter a bet, request that a card be dispensed or not dispensed, and converts each bet into a win or a loss based upon the cards which are dispensed by the automated dealing shoe.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,989,122 (ROBLEJO) relates to an apparatus for randomizing and verifying sets of playing cards.
The patent describes a process of playing a card game comprising providing such an apparatus, feeding unverified sets of playing cards to the apparatus, and recovering verified true sets of cards from the apparatus.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,605,334; 6,093,103 and 6,117,012 (McCREA) disclose apparatus for use in a security system for card games. The secure game table system comprises: a shoe for holding each card from said at least one deck before being dealt by said dealer in said hand, said shoe having a detector for reading at least the value and the suit of said each card.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,250,632 (ALBRECHT) describes an apparatus and method for sorting cards into a predetermined sequence. One embodiment provides a deck holding area in which cards are held for presenting a card to a reading head for reading the characters on the face of the card. The apparatus also has a tray having a sequence of slots and a card moving mechanism for moving the presented card from the deck holding area into one of the slots. The tray is connected to a tray positioning mechanism for selectively positioning the tray to receive a card in one of the slots from the card moving mechanism. A controller is connected to the read head, the card moving mechanism, and the tray positioning mechanism. The controller controls the reading of each of the cards by the read head and identifies the value of each card read, and also controls the card moving mechanism to move each of the cards to a slot of the tray positioned by the tray positioning mechanism according to the predetermined sequence of values.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,248 (JOHNSON) describes a collation and/or sorting apparatus for groups of playing cards. The apparatus comprises a sensor (15) to identify articles for collation and/or sorting, feeding means to feed cards from a stack (11) past the sensor (15) to a delivery means (14) adapted to deliver cards individually to a preselected one of a storing means (24) in an indexable magazine (20). A microprocessor (16) coupled to the feed means (14), delivery means (18), sensor (15) and magazine (20) determines (according to a preprogrammed routine) whether cards identified by sensor (15) are collated in the magazine (20) as an ordered deck of cards or a randomly ordered or “shuffled” deck. This device reads card rank and or suit.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,403,908 (STARDUST) describes an automated method and apparatus for sequencing and/or inspecting decks of playing cards. The method and apparatus utilizes pattern recognition technology or other image comparison technology to compare one or more images of a card with memory containing known good images of a complete deck of playing cards to identify each card as it passes through the apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,217,447 (LOFINK) describes a method and system for generating displays related to the play of Baccarat. Cards dealt to each of the Banker's and Player's hands are identified as by scanning and data signals are generated. The card identification data signals are processed to determine the outcome of the hand. Displays in various formats to be used by players are created from the processed identification signals including the cards of the hand played, historical records of outcomes and the like. The display can also show bettors expected outcomes and historical bests. Players can refer to the display in making betting decisions.
The scanner 32 is of the type which optically scans the card face and generates data signals corresponding to the optical characteristics of the face of the card. As but an example, digital camera means can be used to generate data signals, broken in picture elements, i.e. pixels, the signal strength at the locations of the individual pixels collectively corresponding to the actual appearance of the face.”
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,669,816 and 5,772,505 (GARCZYNSKI) describes a “no peek” dual card scanning module that announces when the symbols of a face-up standard playing card and a face-down standard playing card achieve a desired combination (a blackjack). The module has a scanner system that illuminates and scans at least a portion of a symbol of the face-up standard playing card and at least a portion of a symbol of the face-down standard playing card and stores the results thereof in a first and second array device, respectively. When in this position, the symbol portions of the face-up and the face-down standard playing cards can be scanned by the array devices to generate respective scanning results. The module compares the scanning results with a memory storing a plurality of references representing respective symbols of the standard playing cards to determine if the cards have achieved the desired combination.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,582,301; 6,299,536; 6,039,650; and 5,722,893 (HILL) describe a dealing shoe that has a card scanner which scans indicia on a playing card as the card moves along and out of a chute by manual direction by the dealer in the normal fashion. The scanner can be one of several different types of devices which will sense each card as it is moved downwardly and out of the shoe. A feed forward neural-network is trained, using error back-propagation to recognize all possible card suits and card values sensed by the scanner.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,126,166 (LORSON) describes a system for monitoring play of a card game between a dealer and one or more players at a playing table, comprising: (a) a card-dispensing shoe comprising one or more active card-recognition sensors (for reading rank and or suit) positioned to generate signals corresponding to transitions between substantially light background and dark pip areas as standard playing cards are dispensed from the card-dispensing shoe, without generating a bit-mapped image of each dispensed standard playing card; and (b) a signal processing subsystem. The subsystem may be adapted to: receive the transition signals generated by the active card-recognition sensors; determine, in real time and based on the transition signals, playing-card values for the dispensed standard playing cards; and determine, in real time, a current table statistical advantage/disadvantage relative to the players for playing cards remaining in the card-dispensing shoe.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,941,769 (ORDER) describes a device for use in table games of chance with playing cards and gaming chips (jettons), in particular the game of “Black Jack.” An automatic apparatus is provided which will register and evaluate all phases of the run of the game. This is achieved by providing a card shoe with an integrated device for recognition of the value (rank and or suit) of the drawn cards (3′) (optical recognition device and mirroring into a CCD-image converter); photodiodes (52) arranged under the table cloth (51) in order to register separately the casino light passing through each area (53, 54) for placing the gaming chips (41) and areas (55, 56) for placing the playing cards (3) in dependence of the arrangement or movement of the jettons and playing cards on the mentioned areas; a device for automatic recognition of each bet (scanner to register the color of the jettons, or a RFID-system comprising a S/R station and jettons with integrated transponder); an EDP program created in accordance with the gaming rules to evaluate and store all data transmitted from the functional devices to the computer; and a monitor to display the run of the game and players' wins.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,848 (SOLTYS)—MindPlay LLC U.S. Patent describes a system that automatically monitors playing and wagering of a blackjack game, including the gaming habits of players and the performance of employees. A card deck reader automatically reads an edge symbol from each card in a deck of cards before a first one of the cards is removed. The symbol identifies a respective rank and suit of the card.
There are numerous other MindPlay LLC patents, including at this time U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,712,696; 6,688,979; 6,685,568; 6,663,490; 6,652,379; 6,638,161; 6,595,857; 6,579,181; 6,579,180; 6,533,662; 6,533,276; 6,530,837; 6,530,836; 6,527,271; 6,520,857; 6,517,436; and 6,517,435.
The disclosure in some of the later Soltys Patents (especially those derived from Published U.S. Patent Applications Nos. 20030096645; 20030087696; and 20020155869 includes a disclosure of a CMOS card reading function. “The play tracking subsystem 56 is shown in FIG. 10 as including a playing surface imager 152, positioned within the enclosure formed by the side wall 120 of the chip tray 36 to provide an approximately 180 (degree) view of the playing surface 26 in front of the chip tray 36. In this embodiment, the playing surface imager 152 consists of nine area CMOS color sensors . . . , although the playing surface imager 152 can employ a lesser or greater number of sensors. Each of the CMOS color sensors . . . have a respective field-of-view 154. The playing surface imager 152 can employ other image capture devices, although area CMOS color sensors . . . are particular suitable for imaging the chips 38 and cards of the deck 18 on the playing surface 26 of the gaming table 10, such as wager chips 22 and played cards 30-34 . . . . The CMOS color sensors . . . provide a low angle view of the playing surface 26 (approximately 15 (degrees)) . . . ” US20030096645, page 5, paragraph [0078].
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 20040116179 (Wagerworks, Inc.) describes a game system in which method steps can also be performed by, and apparatus of the invention can be implemented as, special purpose logic circuitry, e.g., an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit).
WO 00/51076 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,629,894 (DOLPHIN ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES PTY. LTD.) disclose a card deck inspection device that includes a first loading area adapted to receive one or more decks of playing cards. A drive roller is located adjacent the loading area and positioned to impinge on a lowermost card if a card were present in the loading area. The loading area has an exit through which cards are urged, one at a time, by a feed roller. A transport path extends from the loading area exit to a card accumulation area. The transport path is further defined by two pairs of transport rollers, one roller of each pair above the transport path and one roller of each pair below the transport path. A camera is located between the two pairs of transport rollers, and a processor governs the operation of a digital camera and the rollers. A printer produces a record of the device's operation based on an output of the processor, and a portion of the transport path is illuminated by one or more blue LEDs.
Published U.S. Patent Application No. 20010036231 (Easkar) discloses an in-camera two-stage compression implementation that reduces the latency between snapshots to a fraction of that otherwise required by other systems that either process complete compression following each snapshot or that incorporate heavy, bulky, and expensive RAM hardware capable of maintaining several raw luminosity records (unprocessed file containing a digital image). In the first stage of compression the raw luminosity record is quickly, yet partially, compressed to available RAM buffer space to allow a user to expeditiously capture a succeeding image. When the higher-priority processes, the user shooting pictures, and stage one compression subside, a second stage compression, which is slower but more effective, decompresses the earlier partially-compressed images, and re-compresses them for saving in flash memory until they are distributed to a remote platform to be finally converted to the JPEG2000 format.
Each of the references identified in the Background of the Art and the remainder of the specification, including the Related Application Data are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety as part of the enabling disclosure for such elements as apparatus, methods, hardware and software.